Tag: twine

Craft Projects

Yarn-Wrapped “S”

Jessica Smith

Good morning and happy Monday!

I showed you yesterday a quick and easy project my girlfriends and I made at our craft night on Saturday. Today, I’m sharing a not so quick and not so easy project that we tackled last weekend, too.

Inspired by many of the yarn- and twine-wrapped letters on Pinterest, Amy, Carrie and I set out to make pretty letters of our own. I made an “S,” Carrie an “H” and Amy a “T.” … we were one letter away from, well, use your imagination.

Anyway, instead of buying cardboard letters we chose to make our own to save some mulah. So, we destroyed several of Amy’s cereal boxes (her hubby was wondering why all of their cereal was in bags on the counter) and made letters of our own.

First, we traced letters onto the boxes, then cut out two of each letter.

Next, we cut thin strips of the cereal box and used them to create a 3D letter. We taped the thin strips all around on of the letters, before taping to top letter on top.

Mmmmm… Raisin Bran.

Once our letters were finished,  it was time to add our yarn and twine. I chose to wrap mine in a brown yarn with a little sparkle to it. Amy and Carrie wrapped theirs in twine. To start mine, I taped it onto the back and started wrapping. A couple of pieces of tape in, I realized two things. One: I needed hot glue, and two: I needed something to cover the tips of my “S.”

I cut out two small rectangles of fabric to glue on each tip of the letter, then continued wrapping and gluing yarn around and around and around. I used almost the entire ball of yarn — holy cow.

Hours later (yes, hours), I finally finished wrapping my letter. I think between the cardboard construction and the yarn wrapping, it took me about 2.5 hours.

Looking good, huh? Time to embellish. I whipped up a cute, fabric flower and a couple of leaves to glue to the letter.

Done!

Carrie had to go home before embellishing her flower, but Amy’s “T” got blinged out 🙂

So cute!? Just like her pup, Stover, who kept us company all night.

Once I got home from craft night I showed my finished product to the hubby — he was super impressed. Instead of hanging the letter up on a door or a wall, I put it on a shelf in our family room. It looks like it was meant to be there.

So what do you think? Will you be making a cereal box letter any time soon? I’d do it again!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Stuffed and sewn fabric pumpkins

Jessica Smith

Are you ready to see the cutest fall decorations yet? My girlfriends and I were browsing the interwebs for ideas for our upcoming craft night and stumbled upon the cutest fabric pumpkins that a woman bought online. I immediately thought they would make a great project for craft night, so when we gathered on Saturday night for fall crafts, we pulled out our fabric and got to pumpkin makin’!

Here’s what you need for this project:

  • Fabric (I used three different types for my trio of pumpkins)
  • Stuffing
  • Yarn
  • Wire twine/Floral Twine
  • Hot Glue
  • Needle & thread

I started by cutting a square out of my fabric and placing a good handful of stuffing into the middle of the square.

Then, I sewed a stitch into one corner of the fabric and knotted it. Once that corner was secure, I sewed through the opposite corner, and then through the remaining two corners. It made a bit of a floofy square.

To round out the pumpkin and make sure no stuffing could escape, I started gathering the outer edges of the pumpkin with stitches. Once all of the edges had disappeared and I could see no more stuffing, I knotted the thread in the center of the pumpkin and fluffed it a bunch.

With everything sewed up, it was time to add yard. I doubled up my yarn, then tied it in circles around the pumpkin. I didn’t do this for my small pumpkin, so I don’t have a photo of just this step — sorry! For my larger pumpkins, I did four circles of yarn. My friend Amy only did three and hers turned out great, too. It is totally up to you. When tying your yarn, make sure you tie it tight enough that the pumpkin fluff can ooze out — this will make the pumpkin look like it has the ridges of a natural pumpkin.

Now it is time to add your stem. For this, I used twine-wrapped wire that you can find in the floral and wreath section of any craft store. There are two ways you can add this to your pumpkin deciding on which side you choose to be the top. You can wrap the wire around the yarn and then twist it around itself to create a stem. Or, you can weave the wire through the fabric, then wrap it around itself. I tried both ways, and both work great.

I also added little spirals of twine to each pumpkin, along with a few fabric leaves. I hot glued these onto the pumpkins. With that, your pumpkins are done! I’d say each pumpkin took less than 10 minutes to make, making this a super fast and super adorable craft.

Here’s my set of three:

So cute! I just might have to make more.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Craft Projects

A wreath for us

Jessica Smith

I showed you on Saturday how to make a wreath using fake flowers and a grapevine base — I had a few flowers left over, so I decided to create a wreath for our front door!

I had a wire form that I picked up from Michaels, but not enough flowers to go all of the way around it.

To cover the rest of the wreath form, I chose to wrap it in twine. To do so, I knotted the twine and started going around the edge of the wreath. It took about 30 minutes and an entire spool of twine, but I really like the look of it.

By the time I made it close to the end of the wreath, I realized I wouldn’t have enough twine to wrap the whole thing. That didn’t matter though, because I was planning on filling that void with the faux flowers.

So, I knotted the end of the twine and started to add the flowers.

Since all of the flowers are on wire, I was able to bend the “stems” around the wires of the exposed wreath form. Once all of the flowers were placed, I took floral wire and secured the flowers even more to the form.

It’s not pretty, but no one will ever see the back, so who cares!?

I embellished with a few leaves, adding them to the wreath with hot glue at each end of the flowers. And with that, my wreath was finished. It only took about an hour — not too bad!